The majority of Americans want a wall along the southern border to protect the United States and American workers from illegal aliens pouring into the country.

Following President Trump’s “State of the Union” (SOTU) address wherein he demanded at least $25 billion from the Republican-controlled Congress to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, nearly 60 percent of Americans said they supported the plan.

The post-SOTU CBS News poll revealed that 59 percent of Americans said they supported “building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.” Only 41 percent of Americans said they opposed the border wall, but were not given other options in the poll for what they would like to see done about securing the country’s southern border.

The support for Trump’s border wall is just the latest development in Americans’ vast support for the president’s plan to transform the current legal immigration — whereby more than 70 percent of legal immigrants arrive in the U.S. for no other reason than to reunify with foreign relatives — into one based on merit, skills, and English proficiency.

In his SOTU address, Trump said it was time for the Republican-controlled Congress to back a merit-based legal immigration system that reduces legal immigration levels in order to raise the wages of American workers and increase the quality of life for the country’s working and middle class.

Trump said:

The third pillar ends the visa lottery — a program that randomly hands out green cards without any regard for skill, merit, or the safety of our people. It is time to begin moving towards a merit-based immigration system — one that admits people who are skilled, who want to work, who will contribute to our society, and who will love and respect our country. [Emphasis added]

As Breitbart News reported, a Harvard-Harris poll found that nearly 80 percent of Americans said they believe “immigration priority for those coming to the U.S. should be based on a person’s ability to contribute to America as measured by their education and skills—and not based on a person having relatives in the U.S.”

Currently, the legal immigration system to the U.S. prioritizes foreign nationals who have foreign relatives already living in the country. This process is commonly referred to as “chain migration.” As Breitbart News reported, chain migration has imported more than nine million foreign nationals to the U.S. since 2005 and is on track to bring at least eight million new foreign voters to the U.S. in the next two decades.

Likewise, as Breitbart News reported, black Americans are the most likely to support reducing legal immigration levels from the current mass immigration system that imports more than one million mostly low-skilled foreign nationals every year.

When asked, “In your opinion, about how many legal immigrants should be admitted to the U.S. each year,” 48 percent of black Americans said they would like to see between one and 250,000 legal immigrants brought to the U.S. a year.

Black Americans have been disproportionately impacted by mass immigration to the U.S., researchers say, as they were replaced by Hispanics in 2004 as the largest minority group in the country.

Every year the U.S. admits more than 1.5 million foreign nationals, with the vast majority deriving from family-based chain migration, whereby newly naturalized citizens can bring an unlimited number of foreign relatives to the U.S. In 2016, the legal and illegal immigrant population reached a record high of 44 million. By 2023, the Center for Immigration Studies estimates that the legal and illegal immigrant population of the U.S. will make up nearly 15 percent of the entire U.S. population.

Mass immigration has come at the expense of America’s working and middle class, which has suffered from poor job growth, stagnant wages, and increased public costs to offset the importation of millions of low-skilled foreign nationals.

Four million young Americans enter the workforce every year, but their job opportunities are further diminished as the U.S. imports roughly two new foreign workers for every four American workers who enter the workforce. Even though researchers say 30 percent of the workforce could lose their jobs due to automation by 2030, the U.S. has not stopped importing more than a million foreign nationals every year.

For blue-collar American workers, mass immigration has not only kept wages down but in many cases decreased wages, as Breitbart News reported. Meanwhile, the U.S. continues importing more foreign nationals with whom working-class Americans are forced to compete. In 2016, the U.S. brought in about 1.8 million mostly low-skilled immigrants.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.